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No outward doors of a man's house can in general be broken open to execute any civil process though in criminal cases the public safety supersedes the private.

William Blackstone

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William Blackstone
Age: 56 †
Born: 1723
Born: July 10
Died: 1780
Died: February 14
Barrister
Judge
Jurist
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
the City
Sir William Blackstone
Doors
Execute
Home
Broken
Outward
Men
Cases
Criminal
Open
Criminals
Public
Civil
Safety
Though
Private
Process
General
Supersedes
House

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Gaming is a kind of tacit confession that the company engaged therein do in general exceed the bounds of their respective fortunes, and therefore they cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer.
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Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity.
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In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.
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Man must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator. This will of his Maker is called the Law of Nature. This Law of Nature is superior to any other. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
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The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
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Every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.
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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.
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The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.
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There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
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Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.
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Trial by jury is a privilege of the highest and most beneficial nature [and] our most important guardian both of public and private liberty. The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, ... but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it.
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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
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Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. for when this reason ceased, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it.
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No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
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So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it no, not even for the general good of the whole community.
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It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
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